JD750 Loc: SoCal

This post is for photographers who are considering buying a high performance camera.

I have been shooting with a M43 mirrorless system for many years. I have watched “mirrorless” evolve. And my latest MILF (mirrorless interchangeable lens format get your mind out of the gutter ;) body is my go to camera. Just today I carried both my DSLR and my mirrorless. The sun was low and I was shooting in my back yard flowers with shadows and contrast with changing light, and the EVF wysiwyg was hands down the winner. No contest.

I’m not trying to bash DSLRs. I have a great DSLR. It has been my favorite camera. But you don’t see what the image is going to be through the optical viewfinder. You see drama, light and shadow, changing light DOF, all that, in a modern EVF. You don’t have to shoot then chimp then adjust then shoot (DSLR process). You just adjust and shoot. It saves time and it can make the difference between getting a shot and not when the light is changing. My mirrorless camera has become my go-to.

So for those thinking of investing in a camera system. First and foremost, photography is about optics. Camera bodies come and go but the lenses you buy will serve you for many years. But with digital the camera body plays a bigger role than in the SLR days. So consider carefully what to invest in. Technology is changing, there are new players in the game, and mirrorless technology is the future.

User ID

TYCO :-)

sloscheider Loc: Minnesota

I guess I wrongly assumed MILFs kept the aperture open to the max until you snapped the photo just like SLR type bodies and thus didn't give a dof preview. interesting... I wonder how the focus systems work so well with a lens stopped down and not letting through much light.

I'm not against mirrorless, I suspect it is the "future" but that doesn't mean all the existing systems are junk. Electric cars are likely the future of personal transportation but for many reasons, cost for me, it's still a ways off for the mainstream.

My top priority is ergonomics, I can change pretty much any setting I would want to change with thumb/finger buttons while never taking my eye from the viewfinder. I'm shooting in conditions where I don't have the time to look at a screen and touch options I want to change - I'll loose income. Nikons new Z bodies still don't offer that from what I've seen but some day I will travel 3 hours to my nearest camera store and play with one.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

MILC! Not MILF. Please...

wdross Loc: Castle Rock, Colorado

It is always about getting the shot. Anything that makes it easy and quicker to get to where you need to be is the camera one should own. Seeing what the shot will look like and having a size that is three lenses (or two lenses and teleconverter), flash, body, extra battery, and accessories, in a bag that fits under the seat in front of you on a plane, with room still for your feet, is a requirement. There is no DSLR that I know of that can meet that requirement. That is why when I switched from film to digital, I went Micro 4/3rds instead of Canon full frame. Much easier to travel small than large. And seeing the actual image you are producing helps limit extra shots just to make sure one's exposure was right. If the exposure is right in the viewfinder, and one has the viewfinder setup correctly, the exposure is right. But my needs are not everyone else's needs. That is why there are several camera manufactures and more than 5 formats.

Haydon

f8lee Loc: New Mexico

Aside - first of all, the proper term is "EVIL" - Electronic Viewfinder Interchangeable Lens!

You might want to check out the Fuji X-T cameras - I moved from Nikon SLRs and DSLRs to because their ergonomics - placement of dials and so forth, were almost the same as the SLR styling. Without moving my eye from the viewfinder I can change aperture, shutter speed, ISO and EV compensation.

That said, EVFs are not the be-all and end-all - there is a slight but sometimes important lag between the time an event happens (the smile on a child's face, say, or a flower blowing in the breeze when trying to do macro work) as compared to the OVF in and SLR. This makes sense - after all, photons bouncing off mirrored surfaces take perhaps a few haptoseconds to reach your eye. But photons passing through a lens and hitting an imaging chip, which then must pass the raw data stream to the in-camera computer to generate a viewable image (effectively like a tiny TV studio in your camera) cannot avoud having some kind of lag.Does this matter for landscapes and still life shots? No. But indoors at a party, it definitely can be annoying to say the least. Further, the "resolution" of OVFs is essentially infinity (again, photon level) so it's easy to see DOF effects or even when a polarizing filter is positioned to maximal effect.

On the other hand, EVFs have the outstanding capability to display (on that tiny TV screen in the eyepiece, or the LCD on the back) what a properly exposed final image will look like, within reason. And if you set the EV to +2 stops, the EVF will brighten accordingly, which can be helpful. What amazed me most was using a 10 stop ND filter - on the DSLR the process, of course, would be to frame the shot on a tripod, screw on the filter, take the shot, then remove the filter in order to reframe the shot as needed (sure, you can use Zune magnetic filter holders, but it's still a PITA and they don't make those in the huge filter diameters used on the Fotodiox Wonderpana system). But with the EVF, after I put on the 10 stop filter and looked through the viewfinder, I couldn't tell the filter was there! The viewfinder displayed the scene as expected (obviously not with the motion blurring that a 30 second exposure would entail, but you get the idea).

So, yes, it is not necessary for EVIL lenses to maintain the aperture at maximum - I have a number of Rokinon and 7Artisans lenses that have zero contacts with the Fuji body and thus have no way of "knowing" when to open suddenly - when I stop them down to f16 or whatever the EVF does not change, other than to indicate the new shutter speed (if I am in Aperture priority mode).

The point is, while it is quire worthwhile to investigate, there might be some advantage to the mirrored setups, depending on your requirements.

radiojohn

Just to keep terms in perspective, my 1 megapixel fixed-focus non-zoom Kodak digital box camera was "mirrorless," as was every digital compact camera and bridge camera that followed it.

But using the term "non reflex housing" (NRH?) sounds pretty bad!

camerapapi Loc: Miami, Fl.

It is difficult to argue the fact that mirrorless cameras are the future of photography. No, dSLR cameras will not disappear but they will not share a big part of the market like they used to.
Mirrorless cameras have more advanced technologies than dSLR bodies and indeed having a monitor that shows the changes we make to the camera, especially with the exposure is a godsend. AF is improving considerably in these little bodies compared to early days. All of them by now have excellent interchangeable lenses and more are coming. Many professionals are now using mirrorless cameras.
You are right, technology is changing rapidly but that is part of what we are experiencing now like we did when we went from SLR to dSLR. There will be photographers that will stick to their dSLR cameras and there will be others that will stay with their mirrorless bodies. How much more manufacturers will keep on improving dSLR cameras I am in no position to discuss.

SonyBug

yea, where is his mind???

jerryc41 Loc: Catskill Mts of NY

Or MILFD - Mirrorless Interchangeable Lens Filmless Device.

throughrhettseyes Loc: Rowlett, TX

Mirrorless is a video camera. My Nikon D500 is mirrorless in the LIVE mode. What's the big deal. Art is Art no matter how you shoot it. But a DSLR is more true to traditional shooting as the SLR.

lsaguy Loc: Udall, KS, USA

The mirrorless vs DSLR yet again. B-O-R-I-N-G. You bought what you bought. Good for you. Now, kindly STHU and go take a photograph or two.

BebuLamar

To me a DSLR is the same as the film SLR. The MILC is significantly different.

RichardSM Loc: Back in Texas

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